11pm, my family is tucked in and sleeping on a Friday night. Satisfied after a day full of yard work and kid's soccer, but looking forward to a brief moment of solitude and quiet. The world seems to stop spinning.
I carefully crack open one of those newly in-vogue canned-cocktails, the sound still piercing the silence. This flavor tastes like a churched-up twisted tea.
A computer on my lap, youtube algorithms, and the next thing I know, I am throwing on Dave Berman's devastating Purple Mountains album.
Kicked back and comfortable, I am kicked in the groin with lines such as:
"But this kind of hurtin' won't heal"
or
"All my happiness is gone"
My brain was not ready to enter this world of hurt, as if racing to barricade the door against an unwelcome intruder. Finding the heaviest items in the room: soccer goals, beach trips, and playing banjo. Any positive thoughts to remind myself I am the luckiest person in the world.
The barricade doesn't hold, as the fault line of my Nashville days now floods the room. The first real argument with my now-wife. Throwing the phone across the room after hanging up. Staying up the whole night ruminating on all the reasons our relationship was not going to work out. Calling in sick from work the next morning and sleeping the whole day. Then calling a therapist for the first time that evening, determined not to let myself sabotage our relationship.
"Maybe I'm the Only One for Me" comes on and I think "THIS is precisely what my wife saved me from". And I believe that. If she didn't pull me out of my own way, I probably would still be chasing down the dream of infinite possibilities, infinite potential. Maybe some of the potential would have been realized. Maybe I would have written a couple great albums. Maybe even a book. But would I ever have been as happy and fulfilled as I was when I cracked that canned cocktail moments earlier?
These grateful thoughts chafe against Berman's deadpan delivery of hurt. A sense of guilt starts to creep in. Right at this moment, so many people are suffering. Busting their ass to barely make ends meet. Losing a loved one, job, or their home.
Lately, I've been feeling this flavor of guilt about how good things are going for me. And writing this last sentence makes me feel silly, and even more guilty?
Here I am, listening to a very depressing album, written by a guy who would soon kill himself, and my response is "I feel bad that things are good".
Obviously, I don't think people being happy in general is shameful. It is specifically I that doesn't deserve all the comforts and love that I get. I get so much more than what I contribute to the world. People who deserve more are suffering instead.
As if I am never going to suffer. As if I am never going to lose those that I love dearly. As if I was some sort of exception.
The album ends just before midnight, and in the dead silence, I hear Berman's voice singing, "and that's just the way that I feel".